


The Upper Hand

by butchfatale



Category: Hannibal (TV), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Crack, F/M, Light BDSM, Masturbation, hannibal has inside jokes with himself, or close enough to crack, suggestions from friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:50:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butchfatale/pseuds/butchfatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tell me, Dr. Lecter," inquired Irene with nonchalance, "have you been wicked?"</p><p>Hannibal tipped his head in her direction, answering with a small huff of laughter. </p><p>“Yes, Ms. Adler. I believe I have.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Upper Hand

**Author's Note:**

> This character combination was inspired by a few of my ridiculous, brilliant friends. I've fallen in love with it. 
> 
> For Izzy, Luke, and Isabel.
> 
> *Behind The Scenes: Their safeword is 'cannibal'.*

Hannibal trailed his fingertips along the smooth grain of his desk, absently stroking the glossy image that lay at its center. He swiped his thumb over his bottom lip in silent anticipation, his eyes following the curve of her face, shoulder, hip, leg, displayed with animal grace against a backdrop of black. It was designed to be provocative, and yet surprised him all the same.

In the cavernous silence of his office, the click of her footfalls echoed behind him as the door ghosted open. The quiet was abruptly charged with electricity.

“I believe we have an appointment, Dr. Lecter,” said Irene, “and I am not a patient woman.”

Hannibal smile to himself, taking great care as he slipped the photograph back into its folder and smoothed a stray lock of hair into immaculate conformity.

“Good evening, Ms. Adler,” he answered, turning to grace her with an easy smile. He waved her inside. “Please.”

Her lips turned up at the corner and she made a soft, thoughtful sound. “I think I’m going to enjoy hearing that in your voice,” she mused. “Charming, truly. It’s the accent.”

He crossed the room in a few sure strides, offering an arm for her coat. Irene held up a hand in declination and breezed past him, moving through his office with an unhurried confidence previously matched only by those who intended to kill him. She lowered herself into his armchair, crossing her slender legs beneath folded hands, and, in retaliation to his professional greeting, settled herself into a controlled mockery of a psychiatrist's posture.

“Tell me, Dr. Lecter,” she inquired with nonchalance, “have you been wicked?”

Hannibal tipped his head in her direction, answering with a small huff of laughter.

“Yes, Ms. Adler. I believe I have.”

 

The brush of leather was cool against his skin, the low click of her heels on the hard wood like music. Irene traced him with the crop as if she were painting him, rendering his image to kneel underneath her, strokes teasingly gentle where they flicked against shifting muscle. He laced his fingers behind his back, tugging on the silk that bound his wrists.

She drew the crop beneath his chin as she circled him again, lifting his face to catch the light. Her eyes softened as she admired the rebellious strands of silver hair that slipped down over his face. “I’m going to enjoy you, Dr. Lecter,” she decided aloud. “Prepare and partake in you like wine.”

A smile ghosted over his lips. He leaned almost imperceptibly into her touch. “I greatly anticipate it, Ms. Adler.”

Irene flashed him a deliciously insincere smile and caressed his cheek with her crop. “I’ll be sure that you do,” she answered, releasing his face to press the top of his head back towards the floor. “Head down, Dr. Lecter,” she asserted, and began to circle him again.

She brought the crop down on him with a flick of her wrist, the leather cracking against his shoulders and back as she moved in slow, rhythmic steps, each click of her falling footsteps accented with Hannibal’s short draw of breath.

“Shame you’re so quiet,” she lamented, her words lazy and drawling. “With a voice as lovely as yours, I was hoping for a screamer.”

Hannibal’s low chuckle was cut short when her crop fell against the small of his back, causing him to suck in a rush of air. “You are not a psychiatrist, Ms. Adler,” he murmured in between strokes, “but your observation skills are impressive. You did not expect a screamer.”

He jerked upright with one solid shove, Irene’s coal-black heel planted firmly against his collarbone. "A girl can dream," she sighed. Hannibal delighted in the intense moment of eye contact as she stared down at him, thoughtful, mulling over his fate, before pressing him flush to the floor with her foot. She hummed in satisfaction when the contact of wood against welts made him flinch.

“Besides, Dr. Lecter, you are a psychiatrist,” she continued absentmindedly, trailing the crop across his bare chest. She planted her feet on either side of his hips and gazed languidly down at him, her eyes raking over his body, the crop dragging along in their wake. "I've had an idea. Since we've established that you" —the crop snapped beneath his navel— "are the psychiatrist, and I" —harder, above his navel— "am the dominant, perhaps we might try something."

Hannibal continued to breathe evenly through his nose, his expression carefully neutral, even as a vine of fire blossomed in the wake of her leather. "Of course, Ms. Adler," he said. "Anything you want."

Her eyes flickered shut. "Oh, you are a treat," she sighed. Hannibal tensed involuntarily when the crop found the line of his thigh through his trousers. It stroked a wandering path along the inside of his leg, meandering upwards before it disappeared as Irene stepped away from him. She set her crop in the center of his chest and turned about it with the grace of a lioness, pausing to tower over his head. "I can't tell you how many dull, starved men and women I see on a weekly basis. People so easy to manipulate, so ashamed of the various...eccentricities of their sexualities. But you, Dr. Lecter..." she shook her head. "You are something special. I'll be spoiled rotten by the time I return to London if I keep seeing you."

"I should say the same of you, Ms. Adler."

She smirked, the crop cracking on his arm. "Flattering as ever, Hannibal. But I haven't explained my proposition."

He maintained meticulous control of his speech. "Of course, Ms. Adler. Please."

"I do like that in your accent," she reflected with a grin.

Irene turned her back on him and took a leisurely stroll about the room, tucking the cop away at her hip and running her hands along the furniture as she went, as if she had nothing more immediate to attend to than a well-read book.

"You are the psychiatrist, Dr. Lecter," she repeated as she finished her circuit of the room, repositioning herself at his hips almost with reluctance, even as he raised them towards her to adjust his aching arms beneath his weight. "I want you to tell me about myself. For each correct assessment, I will reward you." The crop found his inner thigh again. "And for each incorrect assessment, I will punish you."

Hannibal twitched when she stuck him, but his silence held steadfast.

He inhaled as she pushed the crop beneath his belt, so that the tress tinged against the skin of his lower stomach. They disregarded his obvious erection in favor of the game.

"You lived most of your life in the thrall of a controlling environment," began Hannibal evenly. "You seek chaos outside of polite society to establish your own system of power, but refrain—" the crop cracked sharply against his hip, scattering any hope of language he might have possessed.

"Control and power?" chided Irene in mock disappointment. "Anyone I've ever chained to anything knows that I enjoy being in control." She tsked her disapproval. "You can do better, Dr. Lecter."

He focused his attention on her face, at once amused and intrigued. "You do not touch men," he said. "Perhaps due to a poor experience, but more likely you just do not have an interest in doing so."

He silenced himself at the caress of the crop against the front of his pants, pressing down against a previously ignored distension. He lifted his hips, the motion pulling at the binds against his wrists. He shifted in a vain attempt to relieve the stress on his shoulders.

“You know, Dr. Lecter,” began Irene, stroking him with the tress of her crop through his trousers as though she’d forgotten she was doing it at all, “I knew a man just like you once.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Brilliant man. A genius, in fact.”

Hannibal didn’t trust himself to speak, so he simply acknowledged her with an objective glance. Her stroking continued entirely without care, slow and frustratingly light.

“He could look at anyone and read off their life story. He could tell them more about the progression of their day than they could themselves on pain of death.” She flicked the crop away, leaving Hannibal to stare up at her, apparently unphased. Aside from the blatant erection and the precise, count-by-count rhythm to which his breathing adhered, he could have been sitting adjacent her in his leather chair, fully clothed and taking notes.

"You remind me of him, Dr. Lecter, in a way," continued Irene. "In several ways, actually.”

She snapped the crop against his chest again, striking him over the nipple.

The only sound he made was an intake of breath.

After a brief pause, Irene made a quiet, contemplative sound and bent at the waist until their torsos hung in parallel space. She lowered a long, lace-clad arm, her nails immaculate and painted a brilliant crimson shade, and dragged the tips of her fingers from the sparse line of dark hair bellow his navel to the hollow at the base of his throat.

The low chuckle that escaped him when the cascade of sensation rolled down his spine seemed to be reward enough in Irene’s eyes.

“My turn, Hannibal,” she murmured. “You’re too good at this game. While rewarding you is an awful lot of fun for me, I think it rather defeats the purpose of a recreational scolding. So I’ll make some assessments of my own.”

She turned on the ball of her foot and circled around his body, pushing him into an upright position and slipping the crop into the loop at her hip. He followed her with his eyes as she positioned herself behind him, rather than grasp at the chance to roll his strained shoulders or straighten his back.

Irene let her hands sprawl over his skin, dancing across the patchwork of welts she’d left and spurring him to lengthen his spine. She spanned her fingers at the base of his neck and pushed his hair into disarray, her nails etching rows across his scalp, so that his body shuddered with a second wave of goosebumps.

“The principle difference,” continued Irene, her hands snaking across his shoulders as she crouched behind him, “between the man I mentioned just now and you, is that he was a good man. A foolish one, perhaps, but a good one nonetheless.” The long, catlike nails folded beneath her palms and dug into his stomach, scraping long tracks to compliment the wide, raised marks of the crop. “Dr. Lecter, you are not a good man. And I don’t mean that in a ‘punish me, Mistress’ sort of way. I mean you, Dr. Lecter, are the sort of man whom clever people run far, far away from.”

Hannibal exhaled through his nose and granted her a subtle smile. “It takes one to know one, Ms. Adler,” he said.

She leaned into him, her body flush to his spine, pressing her lips to his ear. “You don’t enjoy this out of a lack of control,” she whispered into him. “The thrill you draw from being bound and commanded comes from the challenge. You delight not in being controlled, but in maintaining control over situations in which you’re supposed to be powerless.” She laughed, her voice low and dark and sultry. “You bring me in to tie you and whip you and play dirty, but the fun comes from challenging yourself to keep the upper hand.”

She pushed both palms down to where his legs extended in a long tangle, finding his cock hard and aching underneath the fabric of his pants. "You’re clever, Hannibal,” she murmured. “Perhaps even clever enough to get what you want.” Her arms withdrew and she leaned away, fingertips dragging down the lines of his back. The silk tie at his wrists loosened. “However, as you’ve been clever enough to point out, I prefer not to touch men.”

She pushed him back against the floor, this time without the stress of his shoulders arched underneath him. Instead, she wound the silk tie around his wrists again, binding them tightly in front of his body.

She smiled at him, tranquil and adoring. “I’m not going to touch you at all, Dr. Lecter. You’re going to touch you. And you’re going to do it in the way I instruct, or I’ll treat you like the kind of man you really are.”

Hannibal glanced up to her, offering her the epitome of his practiced gentleman’s smile--offering a glint of something darker underneath. “Yes, Ms. Adler.”

 

Her mouth opened against the side of his head, her breath hot and pouring into him, a secondary sensation to the whip at his stomach.

“Faster,” she demanded, punctuating her order with a snap of leather against his navel. Her fingernails bit into the skin at his hip, and she drew back to crack the tress into the small of his back, where there was an unending sting from blows already left.

Hannibal complied, as much as he was able. Having his wrists tied limited his motion, but he could create steady friction with his fingers laced together. His skin was slick underneath his palms, the slide of it at once familiar and incredibly strange.

Irene kneeled at his back, mirroring his position so that they fit together when she leaned forward to whisper against his throat or command into his ear. She drew back the crop and snapped it against his ass, the hand at his hip forcing his pelvis forward, forcing his back to bend and his head to fall back into her.

Her mouth found his jawline, scraping teeth across the nearly imperceptible stubble. She slipped her hand around his thigh, pulling him back against her, and the crop came down where her fingers had brushed just a heartbeat before.

“You’re too quiet,” she noted into the curve of his neck. “Your breathing is controlled, your throat constricted…” the tress snapped harder into his thigh. Her fingernails dug into his flesh. “I can hear you swallow the erratic patterns, Dr. Lecter. We’re all friends here.”

The crop cracked against a nipple and he barely restrained a short, choked sound. Irene snorted in frustration. “Pressure. Shorter strokes. Surely you’re familiar with this.”

Hannibal chuckled in between his calculated breathing. He pressed firmly against his slick skin, huffing a sharp exhale out of time when she cracked the whip against his ass with the force of her firmly rooted legs behind it.

Irene mouthed at his ear, worrying the flesh between her teeth. She tipped her face into his hair and ordered, “come.”

Then she dropped her head to his shoulder and sank her teeth into him, and the physical shock if not the command itself sent him over the edge of orgasm.

His breath hitched into silence, and he couldn’t retain the short, sharp moan that slipped past his lips when air hit his lungs again. Irene would hear it all the same, and it would be her triumph.

He took a moment to recover and collect himself, during which Irene faded from his shoulder and pressed softly down against the tendon.

She tugged the silk knot at his wrists open and handed him a soft white handkerchief to clean himself up. The cream-colored material was speckled red with blood. “I may have broken skin,” she told him shamelessly. “If only I’d known sooner that would do the trick. I should have taken you for a biter.”

Hannibal laughed lightly, doing his best to return to a presentable state, even if he was wearing nothing but trousers and undergarments pushed down to his knees. He returned them to his hips and buckled his belt securely into place.

He got to his feet, brushing what little dust might have accumulated, and offered Irene a hand. She took it graciously, lifting herself to her feet with ease. He pressed a light kiss to her knuckles.

“We’ve gone over the allotted time,” observed Hannibal casually. “By more than an hour.”

Irene glanced to the clock mounted on the wall. “You were my only appointment for tonight.”

“And I suppose I will be paying for the extra hour?”

Irene smiled a wide, white smile. "Policy, Dr. Lecter."

Hannibal’s mouth quirked up at the corner.

“Goodbye, Dr. Lecter,” bid Irene. “You were genuinely a treat. If I should happen to be in the area, I might like to see you again.” She tossed her coat over an arm and slipped her hand into the pocket, drawing out a sleek black business card. She set it in his open hand with a soft squeeze and turned to go.

“Ms. Adler,” said Hannibal. She stopped, glancing over her shoulder. He crossed the room to stand by her side, pressing the card back in to her palm. “If you are in the area, please feel free to see me again,” he said, “but I don’t believe I will need a card to remember someone quite like you.”

Irene flashed him a smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Dr. Lecter,” she said warmly.

After the door had shut behind her, Hannibal returned to his desk. He examined the handkerchief, folded but dirty, and brushed it in to the garbage. He touched several tissues to the bite on his shoulder, where the bleeding had yet to completely subside, and smiled to himself.

“You should, Ms. Adler,” he said. “You really should.”


End file.
